Staff from PhotoUCLan engaged with the range of curated shows and commercial galleries.
http://www.berlinartweek.de/de/programm/berlin-art-week.html
Ilit Azoulay
Shifting Degrees of Certainty
http://www.kw-berlin.de/de/exhibitions/shifting_degrees_of_certainty_433
Kate Cooper
Rigged
http://www.kw-berlin.de/en/exhibitions/rigged_schering_stiftung_art_award_431
The final day seen the students and staff gain access to C/O Berlin, the most established gallery in Berlin dedicated to Photography. Co-Curator and project manager, Ann-Christin Bertrand, met the students and took them on a guided tour of the currently un-furbished new gallery space. Having moved from the former imperial Postfuhramt in Berlin-Mitte, C/O Berlin relocated into an old American cultural centre building -Amerkia Haus- built just after the second world war. This unique opportunity to catch a glimpse inside the walls of a gallery space prior to is refurbishment is one that the general vistor to Berlin would never get to see.
The attitude and willingness to engage with the students of Ann-Christin Bertrand capped off a truly memorable and productive trip to the ever fascinating German Capital.
Many thanks to all the students and staff involved for making it such a sucessful week.
Situated just off the banks of River Spree, Potsdamer Platz is host to a number of fantastic art galleries. The Isabella Bortolozzi Galerie is one such gallery, positioned inside a building which could be easily overlooked as it is also a residential housing block. Currently on show is the mind-boggling video work of Ed Atkins. His two piece video installation is a surreal trip inside the mind of Atkins, a trip that has to be seen to be fully appreciated.
Just a few minutes walk from the Isabella Bortolozzi is the vast and beautiful, Blain|Southern Galerie on display was group of video works by Douglas Gordon. Both the work and this incredible gallery space instantly reaffirm what an amazing cultural hub Berlin really is.
Berlin promotes a vast variety of alternative bars across the city. These images are showing a small collection of the contemporary social scene and the visitors to the bars.
Street art is the bread and butter of Berlin architecture, and is as much a part of the city as the bricks and mortar used to build it. Both shot and processed in Berlin, the group project centres around not just tags and run-of-the-mill graffiti, but the art that has lent the city the label of ‘the street art capital of Europe’.
Berlin has one of the worlds most renowned contemporary art scenes, visiting the many art spaces is a fundamental aspect of experiencing the city. Day four included trips to a number of established Museums and some smaller independently run galleries. The particularly interesting element of these two examples is the varied display method used to present the work.
On Saturday Adam and Bart travelled outside of Berlin to visit Szczecin, in Poland, Bart’s home town. The purpose was recreational but whilst there we also explored key areas of the city. Parallels between this place and Berlin were particularly obvious in architecture and the city’s layout. Which is explained by Germany’s control of Szczecin between 1870 and 1945. The experience of Polish culture, in a place comparably and strongly tied with Germany, has provided depth and knowledge to our time spent in Berlin.
Today the students visited the Mauerpark flea market, located on Bernauer Strasse.
The market is home to an eclectic selection of stalls where you can buy everything from bike parts and badges, 1950s cutlery sets and faded jigsaws, new and vintage clothes, DDR memorabilia, cats on strings, banana telephones and record players, bibles, watering cans and vinyl.
As the smell of malt wine lingers in the breeze, the ice sheets formed on the pathway presented the only challenge of the day.
Leaving the gates of Mauerpark for the train station presented new opportunities to capture the aesthetics of the district. Once there, amongst the relaxed ambiance of the commuter hub, the train doors opened to the sounds of Berlin.
Field recording: [audio http://vocaroo.com/i/s0JqhTX1UkJO]
Images: Karl Child, Joshua Payne
Words & Audio: James Whitehead
The students were offered the option of two site specific excursions:
The students took advantage of the two unique locations which offered a wealth of visual, historical and political information to feed into their own respective personal projects.
